THIS IS NOT OUR WAR
Recovering from their
experiences in Spain
The men above are four of those who enjoyed a
couple of weeks at rest last summer at the cabin
near Goshen, in the Hampshire hills, that was
arranged for by the Friends of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade. Those in the picture are Joaquim
Pereira, Bans Niebuhr, Theodore Pangalos and
Leroy Walkoff. Fifteen to twenty other vets who
were wounded or otherwise in need of medical
care got a rest in the same place.
Hans Niebuhr served in the German army
during the first World War, and came to the
United States in 1922. He is an American citizen.
He arrived in Spain in February, 1937, served in
both the Lincoln and Thalmann battalions, was
wounded by a hand-grenade, and returned to the
U. S. on December 23 last year. A lot of the vets
know him also for his activity in our work in New
York since his return.
Theodore Pangalos served in the brigades from
February, 1937, to August, 1938. He was in the
Thirteenth "Dombrovski" Brigade, and was
wounded by bomb shrapnel. He's also not native
born, but has lived in New York since 1923.
Joaquim Pereira is a native of Portugal who has
lived in New
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VETS STATEMENT ON WAR
The following is the statement issued by the New York Post, Veterans of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and signed by Fred Keller, Commander of the post.
The posts in other cities, and every individual vet, are urged to give this
statement or similar ones the widest possible circulation, so that our view of the
war will become clear to our thousands of friends.
"We, the members of the New York Post of the Veterans of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade, who fought in the International Brigades in Spain for
democracy against Fascism feel that the present European war is not an anti-
fascist war but an imperialist war, and that as long as it remains so we not only
will not take part in it, but we will emphatically oppose our country's entering it
or giving assistance to either side.
"The British and French governments are not waging a war for Polish
independence, nor a war for democracy against fascism. This has been proven by
(1) their conduct before the outbreak of hostilities, when they refused to form a
collective security pact with the Soviet Union, which would have guaranteed
Poland's independence and checked further fascist aggression; (2) their failure to
take decisive military measures for Poland's defense either in Poland or France;
(3) their unrepentant betrayals of democracies like Spain and Czechoslovakia,
and (4) their failure, up to this very day, to prosecute the war actively.
"This war is a struggle between German imperial ambitions and British and
French imperial domination for control, of Europe and re-division of colonies,
not far the freedom and independence of the Polish people.
"We feel that we can speak with unique authority on this subject, because at a
time when the majority of the press characterized the Spanish war as a civil war,
as a war of Fascism against Communism, and opposed American aid to the
Spanish Republic, we not only recognized it as a war between democracy and
fascism, as has been apply proved by events, but we even lent our homes, our
jobs and families -- and hundreds of our fellow-volunteers gave their lives -- in
order to fight for the Republic of Spain. Bitter, first-hand experience has taught
us who the friends and enemies of the Spanish Republic were. We, together with
the majority of the people of Spain, fought not only against the planes and
artillery and limitless war materials of German and Italian Fascism, but against
the treachery of the Chamberlain and Daladier governments which, while posing
as friends of democracy, refused to sell arms to the Spanish Republic, perpetrated
the monstrous lie of non-intervention, and thus denied us the very means
whereby democracy might have triumphed over Fascism in Spain. We remember,
too, the feeling of the Spanish people in those last heart-breaking days of the war:
'Hitler and Mussolini fought us openly,' they cried, embittered. 'But Chamberlain
and Daladier fought us under cover and knifed us in the back.'
"Today the same press which falsified the character of the Spanish war is
printing reams of Chamberlains propaganda in which the British Prime Minister
attempts to hide his real aims under the guise that he is waging a war for
democracy against fascism and for Polish independence. At the same time he
misrepresents the true intent and service of the Soviet Union. But we
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